Marine Says No to Killing American Citizens

Sgt. Gary Stein, 26, a nine-year veteran, put comments on a Facebook page…that said he would not follow unlawful orders from President Obama such as ordering the killing of Americans or taking guns away from Americans. He also criticized comments made by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta about Syria.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits uniformed personnel from making comments critical of their chain of command, including the commander-in-chief, or engaging in political activity….

Over the past few years I’ve become incredibly paranoid with the technological tyranny going on in this country, and the idea that anyone could be a potential terrorist. The NDAA bill, after all, explicitly says the president has the power to indefinitely detain any American citizen, without due process. That kind of suspicion is the worst mindset an empire, or prosperous nation could have. Distrust of neighbors and fellow citizens. From where does this distrust stem?

The mainstream media, who mostly report and reread the statements issued by government officials. Instead of the American media researching and ‘checking’ the three major branches of government, they parrot the reports they are given from our leaders in Washington.

Washington’s global war on terror has waged for over ten years, and it has undermined the prosperity and liberty of the majority of American citizens. There are people making enormous amounts of money over continuous, decades-long war, but most of us are going to be forced into austerity measurements: no money for teachers, firefighters, police forces, postal services, healthcare programs, nutrition and dietary health for children, and on.

Where does Sgt Gary Stein fit in? I believe he’s the start of this generation of Marines and military personnel who will begin saying no to more overseas invasion and occupation. It is his kind who may even put the lid on striking Iran. Reports are swirling online that some of the military’s top brass are against war with Iran.

Sgt Stein is also a monkey wrench in the system of command when it comes to enforcing the NDAA bill, and carrying out the murders of American citizens overseas. Will the military go along with arresting American citizens? How many Gary Steins are going through the motions in the US armed forces, hiding their distrust, and dis-ease with the American government?

Why hasn’t America risen up against the tyrannical powers afforded to the latest NDAA bill? It seems people are mostly in disbelief over it. I know when I’ve told people about it, they say, But what about the Constitution? They don’t believe Barack Obama would sign something like detaining American citizens without giving them a trial.

Americans also don’t believe Pres Obama has ordered the killings of three American citizens living overseas. And if they have heard about it, and they do believe it happened, they seem to think it’s all right, because the White House said Anwar al-Awlaki was a terrorist (even though he was probably closer to a mid-level blogger for some of Al Qaeda’s ideas, and he should have been arrested and given a trial). But what about Awlaki’s sixteen year old son? Should he have been ordered dead also?

If America doesn’t fully wake up, and too many pseudo-liberal trendies continue to throw their support behind Pres Obama without knowing how much alike, and maybe how much worse, even, he is than George W Bush was, who will end this constant erosion of liberties and Constitutional freedoms?